


After All

by Vashti (tvashti)



Series: SPS [5]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Amused Bran, August 2018 TwistedShorts Ficathon, Community: twistedshorts, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Gen, HEA, Happily Ever After, Pack Dynamics, Protective Oz, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Secret Identity, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 19:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: Oz-the-werewolf looked at Bran with neither fear nor animosity.  He didn’t bow in submission.  Buffy, on the other hand was giving Bran the eye.  “What, exactly, do you think about my boyfriend?”





	After All

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the last day of the 2018 August FAD…but not posted. I sorta finished at 2am? It was a bad night. Anywho, it’s been reviewed and edited for clarity, but the content is largely unchanged (you’ll have to trust me). I am my own beta. If I’ve missed something, please comment in the comments.
> 
> This is a good place to remind you of the "fusion" tags. Though all the action is set in the Mercy-verse, it borrows rules from both. There will be a follow-up note at the end. Feel free to ask questions, but if you kick up a fuss regarding why ____ is doing ______, especially since it doesn’t work like that in the ____-verse, I will redirect you here.

"Do you know what Oz is?" Bran asked Buffy.

"My wolfier-than-normal boyfriend?" she said as her eyes tracked the creature pacing the cage behind the Marrok.

Bran rolled his eyes. The wolf behind him slammed against the reinforced bars of his cage. Bran gave Buffy a look.

“My very protective, wolfier-than-normal boyfriend?”

“Buffy...”

“I thought we agreed on Anne.”

Bran shook his head. “I can’t call you Anne. The name tastes like a lie when I say it and smells like a lie when you do.” He glanced back at Oz, still pacing and watching them. “And I hate lies,” he said slowly as he turned to face Buffy again.

Brows furrowed, Buffy’s eyes skipped between her wolfed-out boyfriend and the leader of all the werewolves in North America. “Uh, is something going on that I should know about? And, for the record, I’d like to mention that I am just as protective of Oz as he is of me. In case you were wondering.” She was still frowning, but she wasn’t sure if she should be.

“What do you know about Oz?” Bran asked.

Buffy shrugged. She started ticking off traits with her fingers: “Protective,” she said pointedly. “Redhead, musician, super-chill without being chilly, low-key nerd, low-key philosopher, low-key hilarious, non-chatty, surprisingly not serious about things most people get all twisted up about, seriously serious about things that are actually worth being serious about, faithful… Um, do you need more because I had to start over with my fingers.”

“You could have stopped several traits ago.”

“Oh. Well.” Buffy made a face. “Why is this important?”

Bran asked her another question instead: “How was Oz turned?”

Shrugging, Buffy said, “Bite. From a toddler. Toddlerish. Toddleresque? Are they still toddlers at 6?”

“Bite?” Bran asked, wisely focused on the most important parts of her ramble. “That’s not how werewolves are made.”

“It is when the biter is a natural werewolf from a family of natural werewolves,” Buffy said sardonically.

Bran’s body language, subtly tense before, now relaxed. Behind him, Oz relaxed as well.

Buffy’s eyebrows climbed. “Whoa. How did you do that?”

“I thought so.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Bran turned around and faced Oz again. The werewolf looked back at him with neither fear nor animosity. He didn’t bow in submission.

He yawned.

Buffy, on the other hand, who also had her arms crossed over her chest, was giving Bran the eye. “What, exactly, did you think about my boyfriend?”

“I _know_ that Oz is an omega wolf,” Bran said, coming to stand next to Buffy. Together they watched Oz more or less ignore them. “If he were a dominant wolf, my nearness to you would invoke his protective instincts. If he were a submissive werewolf, my presence would make him want to invoke my protective instincts.”

Gesturing towards Oz, who was now watching them lazily, she said, “Uh, he’s not doing either of those.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“I’m lost.”

“Doc Wallace told me that, when Mercy went to his office to report that Oz had come out of his coma, she seemed very upset,” Bran said as they watched Oz. “When I saw her again later, she could hardly stand to be in the same room with me. Samuel had invited her to stay for dinner. Needless to say, it made dinner more awkward than it usually is when he invites her to stay. What happened at the infirmary two days ago?”

Buffy glanced at Bran, only to see that he was still watching Oz. She sighed. “Nothing, really. Before Oz woke up, we had been having a conversation about something. I told her the truth of the situation the way I see it, and she told me the truth the way she sees it.”

“But you see it differently.”

“Like, so much. Then Oz did wake up, and I guess I might have pushed it a bit, and then… See, Oz has this way of saying things that are, like, super obvious but no one else would ever say. And when he’s around people tend to do the same thing. So I think Mercy had a moment of that and she wigged.”

Bran nodded. “And earlier, when I told you why I refuse to call you Anne. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have done that.”

“And what makes these abnormal circumstances?”

Bran turned to face Buffy. “That Oz is an omega werewolf.”

“Okay, like, you said that already, but you aren’t making with the explain-y bits.”

Bran took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Omega wolves are rare. Incredibly rare. In a number of ways. They are part of a pack, but outside of its hierarchy.”

Frowning, Buffy said, “I didn’t know that could happen.”

“It’s so abnormal, that as far as anyone is concerned it can’t happen. Except where omegas are concerned.” Bran faced Oz again. “As a side benefit to omega wolves being outside pack hierarchy, they are not effected by its constant struggles for rank and power. They are who they are and none can bring them down or raise them up. Nor do they have a desire for either rank or power. And because they don’t desire these things, they allow the wolf that lives inside every werewolf they meet to be at peace.”

Buffy gave Bran side-eye. “I don’t know what Mercy is, but she’s not a werewolf. And if you want to know how I know...” She gestured to Oz. “Plus, y’know, _the_ Vampire Slayer.”

Bran didn’t rise to the bait, saying instead, “Omegas have a calming, soothing influence on everyone all the time. People are almost involuntarily open around them.” He glanced at Buffy. “Did you know him before the Change?”

“Yeah.”

“Was he always all the things you described?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“That’s why I asked how he’d been turned. There are very few omega wolves because it takes a madman or extreme accidental trauma to turn one. Under normal circumstances, no werewolf could bear to hurt someone with that kind of influence on their wolf.”

Buffy grimaced. “Unless he was a toddler-sized natural werewolf with ‘Biter’ on his blue card.” When Oz perked up, Buffy replayed the words in her head. Alarmed she turned to Bran. “His parents have totally got that cleared up, by the way. Like, right after he turned Oz. Very stern talking to. Very much with the biting-is-bad, we-don’t-bite-the-ones-we-love, we-don’t-bite-anyone-actually talk. Lots of talking.”

Bran snorted. “I think I would have heard about it by now if they hadn’t taken steps.”

“I got one problem with your omega theory.”

“What?”

“Just now Oz was all growly face. And before, when Oz was first turned, we always had to cage him and watch him with a tranq gun.” Buffy made a face. “He, um, got away from us a few times.”

Bran attacked Buffy suddenly. They were at a standstill almost before it began. And Oz was growling and throwing himself at the reinforced steel bars.

“What the hell!” Buffy barked. Oz’s growl only seemed to heighten the tension.

Despite being locked in a deadly embrace with the an angry Slayer, Bran was as calm as if they were having tea on his porch. “Like you said, your boyfriend is very protective.”

Buffy dared to glance at Oz, still attacking his cage, apparently for her sake. “If I let you go, you promise not to try that again?”

“Of course.”

With narrowed eyes, Buffy relaxed her grip on Bran’s hands. He stepped back and so did she. Oz kept pacing, but he stopped attacking his cage. “If you tell me we have to kiss and make up to get him to calm down, I will totally break your face.”

Bran chuckled. “Is that the truth as you see it?”

“It’s the truth as I know it.”

He laughed again, harder. Buffy managed to crack a smile as her heart-rate slowed down. “Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of a jerk?”

“More than once,” Bran admitted.

“Well…so long as you know.”

As they settled into their neutral positions, Oz settled in the cage. Watching him again, Buffy said, “So how many omegas are there? You said that they’re super rare.”

“Oz makes number eight.”

Buffy frowned. “Eight hundred? Eight thousand? Eight million?”

Bran shook his head. “No, eight. Period. At least in North America. There are undoubtedly more across the globe. Maybe twenty total. Maybe.”

“Holy sh--” She cut herself off when Bran shot her a look.

“I don’t like swearing,” he said.

“-sheboygan.” She scratched the back of her head. “Sorry.”

Bran shrugged. Oz yawned. They watched each other.

It was Buffy who broke first. “So now what? What does this mean for Oz and your pack? I’m not giving him up.”

Bran spun on his heel to really and truly face Buffy. “Omegas are outside the pack. Oz may be mine because he’s a werewolf, but...I can’t claim him.”

Buffy’s eyebrows flew towards her hairline. “Really?”

“It’s hard to lie when he’s around, remember?”

Squealing, Buffy leapt forward the two steps that separated them and threw her arms around Bran’s neck.

He threw a hand up as she moved in for the kill. “I will not be responsible for my actions if you kiss me.”

Buffy giggled and disentangled herself from Bran’s side. “Can I ruffle your hair?”

“No.”

Buffy pouted melodramatically.

“I have raised two teenage boys and am vicariously raising a teenaged girl.”

“So it won’t work?”

One of Bran’s eyebrows went up.

Buffy grinned. “Okay. So when can we go home?”

“Oz should be fully healed by tomorrow. You can leave in the evening if you want.”

“Yay!”

“Or you can spend your vacation in Aspen Creek. All expenses paid.”

Buffy eyed Bran skeptically. “Is this because my boo is a super special wolf?”

“Yes. Does that bother you?”

“Better than doing it because I’m the Slayer.”

“It’s a factor. Keep your friends close.”

“And your enemies closer?” Buffy said, eyebrows raised.

“Allies.”

Buffy smiled. “I’ll have to double-check with Oz when he’s able to form whole sentences, but I think we’ll take you up on your most generous offer. Thank you.”

Bran gave her a shallow bow.

“Uh, am I supposed to curtsy?”

Bran laughed, then skirted around her to walk away.

Smiling still, Buffy watched him leave before approaching Oz in his cage. She sat on the floor beside him. “Looks like we’re going on vacation after all.”

 

[in]Fin[ite]

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this answered the variety of questions people have asked me over the course of the series. It was written before all of y’all saw it to ask me questions, but apparently I saw them coming :D 
> 
> Does Oz look like a Mercy-verse werewolf? Yes. Why? Because this is a fusion story that was completed at 2am on a Saturday.
> 
> Isn’t Charles the only natural-born werewolf in the Mercy-verse? True. But this is a fusion story. Like Omegas, natural werewolves are exceedingly rare, but they are known (notice Bran’s reaction).
> 
> Did Bran and Buffy really fight to a standstill? Shouldn’t ___ be stronger because s/he is the ____? Yes, they did. And maybe they should, but destroying each other has _never_ been the point of this story, as Buffy clearly states over and over again.
> 
> Why is Bran so chill about everything? Because, Bran. Also because Oz is an omega werewolf.
> 
> Why doesn't Buffy (and/or the Watchers Council) not know about Omega werewolves? Because there are 20 or less of them worldwide. In the current Mercy-verse timeline there are a whopping 12 in N. America. 
> 
> If there are any other questions not addressed here, please ask in the comments. I’ll be happy to answer :)


End file.
